Ama Shama

Problem Statement

Raising children requires from parents a lot of effort and time. This is especially true with preschool children - they grow very fast and also their habits are formed. Providing proper nutrition might be very challenging and stressful for caregivers.

Possible Solution

Ama-Shama - a tool that will help parents of preschool children in feeding properly their children. It will also help with inspiration and reduce time spent in the kitchen.

Team & my role

All the team members took part in all activities druing the whole design process.

This project is part of postgraduate studies in UX Design / Product Design at SWPS University of Social Sciences and Humanities. Team consisted of 4 members - Karolina Kruk, Małgorzata Przybylska, Piotr Herla and me - Aneta Nejman.

Scope of work

• UX Research
  (screener, respondents recruitment, IDIs, data analysis)
• Strategy
  (competition analysis, journey mapping, value proposition canvas)
• Modeling
  (user stories, wireframes)
• Prototyping
• User testing
  (The part I'm presenting here)

The proccess

Each of the team members participated in all stages of the design process and influenced the shape of the product. I took care of the "Plan" function and, after usability tests, also the "Compose" function. I was also responsible for coordinating the entire prototype so that the combined scenarios of different team members formed a coherent whole.

My tasks

• "Plan" function
• "Compose" function (after usability tests)
• Coordinating the entire prototype

Methodology in user testing

We wanted to see where users are doing mistakes and what is incomprehensible to them. It bothered us is the terminology we used clear or maybe users understand otherwise. And above all - we wanted to find out what could be improved so the app will be simply better to use, so we've conducted usability testing through Google meet.

• 10 tests
• 1 hour each
• 7 tasks given to ech user
• Think aloud protocol

During tests we were able to observe several problems with our product. They have been categorized into critical, essential and minor errors. We also noted many interesting observations of the testers - both positive and negative. These insights will enable the introduction of many interesting solutions at a later stage of product development.

Critical error - red colour

• They prevent performance specific tasks.
• Cause great frustration in users.
• Require immediate improvement.

Essential error - blue colour

• Their solution significantly improves the user experience.
• They can be worked around.
• They involve unnecessary user activity and / or frustration.

Minor error - green colour

• Most of the users can deal with them.
• They do not significantly affect the user experience.
• They do not cause special big emotions.
• Their improvement accelerates and increases the smooth use of the product.

We collected all our notes in Miro. Both those concerning errors as well as those containing opinions users and their negative and positive feelings. We grouped the cards that were relevant the same tasks, and then we assigned the tasks importance. We also verified how many users had a problem at the same stage of exploration prototype. Finally, we multiplied the impact of the error (5 - blocker, 3 - significant, 2 - minor, 1 - opinion) by task importance (3 - very important, 2 - important, 1 - less important) by its frequency occurrence. Thanks to this, we received the result or the severity of the error.

Impact × Severity × Frequency = Severity of the error

The severity of the errors helped us determine what to take in the first stage of the prototype corrections. Bearing in view of the entirety carried out so far usability tests - we adopted the severity division according to the following range:
0.1-1.9 - low priority,
2.0-5.9 - high priority,
6.0-9.0 - the highest priority.

Oops... However, we figured out that to act with low priority we also qualified user reviews, not just errors. We wanted to repeat the whole process, but it turned out that most of the respondents' opinions and suggestions were in the range of 0.1-0.6. Therefore, in the list of errors below, there are minor errors in the range 0.7-1.9. We found some of them worthy of further consideration and amendment at this stage. The changes that we decided to implement were cosmetic, but we believe that they can improve the reception of the entire project.

"Plan" function

Critical error Editing method - too hard to find - 9/10 users had problem to find editing method, usually they tried to edit a specific meal by clicking on their photo.

• Recommendation
  Changing the location of the edit icon, it should be within the photo of a specific meal.
• Design decision
  Editing a meal by clicking on its photo. Clicking brings up a context menu.

Essential error Wrong interpretation of the “Add a set” button - 4/10 users interpreted the plus on the screen as a button to add a dish or add own recipe to the list.

• Recommendation
  The button should be editted so that it unambiguously informs which function it activates. For this purpose in addition to the “plus” icon, an appropriate text can be added.
• Design decision
  Button with a plus icon received "Add a set" text

"Compose" function

Critical error Misinterpretation of the button “Compose a new recipe” - 4/10 users misinterpreted the button "+ Compose a new recipe", which resulted in great problems in completing the task. Most often button was interpreted as an option to enter own recipe from scratch.

• Recommendation
  Reconstruct the layout.
• Design decision
  Flow was rebuild and number of steps was reduced, which should have a good effect on the readability and the speed of completing the task.

Summary

Thanks to the tests, we were able to take a look on Ama-Shama from a different perspective and admit, that we made some mistakes at the stage design. However, this pinch of salt did not put us off. On the contrary - it increased the value of the coffee, as it does in practice any other dish. We learned, that it is always worth asking and being open for completely new flavor combinations.

What's next?

Correction of errors in the prototype and further tests usability, and on their basis for further development application.